4 ms·

But how will the CEO get millions in compensation for running the browser into the ground while funding her side projects? Oh sorry, she's chairwoman of the bo

But how will the CEO get millions in compensation for running the browser into the ground while funding her side projects? Oh sorry, she's chairwoman of the board now, completely different.

skissane 2y ago
I can’t help but wonder where Firefox would be today if Brendan Eich had not been pushed out as CEO
- llm_trw 2y ago
  Mozilla was in terminal decline in 2014 so pretty much in the same place as today. You'd have to go back to 2009.
  - skissane 2y ago
    Brendan Eich might not be the perfect CEO. But still I think he would have done better than Mitchell Baker did. He's interested in technology in a way in which she isn't.
    - lern_too_spel 2y ago
      Eich wasted effort on FirefoxOS because he doesn't understand business. Now he's a cryptogrifter.
      - timschmidt 2y ago
        FirefoxOS had potential to pick up the pieces from the outstanding WebOS. We could have seen continued funding for Servo as well.
        lern_too_spel 2y ago
        The business model for FirefoxOS didn't make sense, just like the business model for WebOS didn't make sense. Android was cheaper than free to put on phones because Google was willing to share search revenue with carriers. They would not have done that on a FirefoxOS phone before it reached scale, nor would Microsoft, which was pushing its own phones.
        rasz 2y ago
        Offering privacy first OS would make perfect sense.
        timschmidt 2y ago
        I don't buy it. Apple owners pay premium prices for a perception of increased safety and convenience. I feel that way about what WebOS was. There is always market space available for a device people want.
        lern_too_spel 2y ago
        You feel that way, and WebOS failed on phones.
        timschmidt 2y ago
        HP played musical CEOs - 3 in less than a year - and one decided they shouldn't be in the phone or PC business. People loved the phones which were objectively years ahead of Android or iOS. It was not a product failure, but one of management.
        lern_too_spel 2y ago
        People loved the phones, but they didn't buy them. The carriers didn't want to sell them because they don't get paid on the backend. As I said, the business model doesn't work.
        SahAssar 2y ago
        The business model for webOS was the same as the one for iOS though. Make OS, put it on devices, sell devices. Sell apps.
      - r3db34rd 2y ago
        [dead]
      - lenkite 2y ago
        FirefoxOS was simply dumped too early. You need TIME to advance in an established market and they simply didn't give it time. They wanted results within a year or two, but growth occurs organically in an occupied market. In India, an entire telecommunications company was forced to use a fork - KaiOS for Reliance Jio phones because FirefoxOS was abandoned. FirefoxOS was a terrific idea, but the baby needed time to grow up to teenage level, but was murdered soon after birth
    - wkat4242 2y ago
      A leader should unite an organisation. You can't lead an inclusive organisation and then cause divisiveness. And don't forget, these things are not just cosmetic. Not being able to get married could lead to some serious consequences when having kids (e.g. a lesbian couple) and one partner dying. Personally I would not have pushed to fire him, no, and I'm very pro-LGBTQ+. It was only a small donation compared to how much he makes and the legislation was easily defeated. But I don't work at Mozilla.
      - torstenvl 2y ago
        > And don't forget, these things are not just cosmetic. Not being able to get married could lead to some serious consequences when having kids (e.g. a lesbian couple) and one partner dying. That is not true. California had domestic partnerships with identical rights and responsibilities as marriage starting in 1999. Eich opposed applying a term that, in his view, carried religious import. That's all.
      - llm_trw 2y ago
        So how well did Mozilla do with an inclusive leader?
        wkat4242 2y ago
        Well, not very well but it was clearly the wrong leader.
        llm_trw 2y ago
        I'm not sure I'd call losing 95% of your market share well, but each to their own I suppose.
        Gud 2y ago
        Mozilla has been doing terrible.
- teg4n_ 2y ago
  is there any reason to think it wouldn’t look like Brave just with firefox instead of chromium?
  - lolinder 2y ago
    Is there any reason that would be a problem? My main beef with Brave is that it's not really contributing to browser diversity.
    - wkat4242 2y ago
      Yes. Brave's crypto scam is a problem, and they've done some very controversial things in that regard. Like taking "money" on behalf of sites that didn't even participate.
- edflsafoiewq 2y ago
  I don't think the CEO matters. Their entire trajectory was probably fixed the instant Google decided to release a browser.
  - jordanb 2y ago
    Yes. The purpose of Mozilla Org, from the perspective of the people paying for it (Google), was to kill Firefox. Mitchell Baker got rewarded because she did her job.
    - gary_0 2y ago
      It's hard not to imagine Google giving a little wink as they hand over that check.
- mardifoufs 2y ago
  I don't think he would've done things differently really. He was also part of the same old guard and wasn't exactly aiming for some radical changes inside Mozilla. Imo one of the only things that could've made Firefox more relevant would've been to focus on an electron alternative, especially early on in 2013-14 as it would've been an entirely new "product segment", which could've made Firefox the standard engine for a lot of apps. But there's no indication that anyone high up at Firefox wanted to do something like that. It's a non-profit and non profits are rather conservative, for better or for worse.
  - Moomoomoo309 2y ago
    You mean positron? https://github.com/mozilla/positron https://github.com/mozilla/positron They did try to build that, and gave up.
    - kasabali 2y ago
      They had XULRunner long before that, then of course they ditched it to pursue whatever crap they were pursuing that year. What a great vision.
    - mardifoufs 2y ago
      Yeah I heard about it, but I don't know why they gave up. There's a lot of stuff that could be done to improve on electron (especially back then), and Mozilla was in a nice position where they controlled their web engine (as opposed to electron), so they could've made a very solid product... anyways that's not happening now... Edit: okay from what I understand in the blog, one of the reasons for abandoning it was that it was hard to keep up with the electron API changes and keep it compatible. That just goes to show that they were completely outplayed early on, otherwise they wouldn't have had to play catch up by merely being an electron shell around Spider monkey... >But Tofino is dead (long live the Browser Futures Group!), and Electron compatibility isn’t essential for a viable Gecko runtime. It’s also hard, since Electron has a large API surface area, is a moving target, requires Node.js integration (itself a moving target), and is designed for Chromium’s process architecture, which is substantially different from Firefox’s.
  - 2y ago

But how will the CEO get millions in compensation for running the browser into the ground while funding her side projects? Oh sorry, she's chairwoman of the board now, completely different.

skissane 2y ago

I can’t help but wonder where Firefox would be today if Brendan Eich had not been pushed out as CEO

llm_trw 2y ago
Mozilla was in terminal decline in 2014 so pretty much in the same place as today. You'd have to go back to 2009.
- skissane 2y ago
  Brendan Eich might not be the perfect CEO. But still I think he would have done better than Mitchell Baker did. He's interested in technology in a way in which she isn't.
  - lern_too_spel 2y ago
    Eich wasted effort on FirefoxOS because he doesn't understand business. Now he's a cryptogrifter.
    - timschmidt 2y ago
      FirefoxOS had potential to pick up the pieces from the outstanding WebOS. We could have seen continued funding for Servo as well.
      - lern_too_spel 2y ago
        The business model for FirefoxOS didn't make sense, just like the business model for WebOS didn't make sense. Android was cheaper than free to put on phones because Google was willing to share search revenue with carriers. They would not have done that on a FirefoxOS phone before it reached scale, nor would Microsoft, which was pushing its own phones.
        rasz 2y ago
        Offering privacy first OS would make perfect sense.
        timschmidt 2y ago
        I don't buy it. Apple owners pay premium prices for a perception of increased safety and convenience. I feel that way about what WebOS was. There is always market space available for a device people want.
        lern_too_spel 2y ago
        You feel that way, and WebOS failed on phones.
        timschmidt 2y ago
        HP played musical CEOs - 3 in less than a year - and one decided they shouldn't be in the phone or PC business. People loved the phones which were objectively years ahead of Android or iOS. It was not a product failure, but one of management.
        lern_too_spel 2y ago
        People loved the phones, but they didn't buy them. The carriers didn't want to sell them because they don't get paid on the backend. As I said, the business model doesn't work.
        SahAssar 2y ago
        The business model for webOS was the same as the one for iOS though. Make OS, put it on devices, sell devices. Sell apps.
    - r3db34rd 2y ago
      [dead]
    - lenkite 2y ago
      FirefoxOS was simply dumped too early. You need TIME to advance in an established market and they simply didn't give it time. They wanted results within a year or two, but growth occurs organically in an occupied market. In India, an entire telecommunications company was forced to use a fork - KaiOS for Reliance Jio phones because FirefoxOS was abandoned. FirefoxOS was a terrific idea, but the baby needed time to grow up to teenage level, but was murdered soon after birth
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    A leader should unite an organisation. You can't lead an inclusive organisation and then cause divisiveness. And don't forget, these things are not just cosmetic. Not being able to get married could lead to some serious consequences when having kids (e.g. a lesbian couple) and one partner dying. Personally I would not have pushed to fire him, no, and I'm very pro-LGBTQ+. It was only a small donation compared to how much he makes and the legislation was easily defeated. But I don't work at Mozilla.
    - torstenvl 2y ago
      > And don't forget, these things are not just cosmetic. Not being able to get married could lead to some serious consequences when having kids (e.g. a lesbian couple) and one partner dying. That is not true. California had domestic partnerships with identical rights and responsibilities as marriage starting in 1999. Eich opposed applying a term that, in his view, carried religious import. That's all.
    - llm_trw 2y ago
      So how well did Mozilla do with an inclusive leader?
      - wkat4242 2y ago
        Well, not very well but it was clearly the wrong leader.
        llm_trw 2y ago
        I'm not sure I'd call losing 95% of your market share well, but each to their own I suppose.
        Gud 2y ago
        Mozilla has been doing terrible.
teg4n_ 2y ago
is there any reason to think it wouldn’t look like Brave just with firefox instead of chromium?
- lolinder 2y ago
  Is there any reason that would be a problem? My main beef with Brave is that it's not really contributing to browser diversity.
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    Yes. Brave's crypto scam is a problem, and they've done some very controversial things in that regard. Like taking "money" on behalf of sites that didn't even participate.
edflsafoiewq 2y ago
I don't think the CEO matters. Their entire trajectory was probably fixed the instant Google decided to release a browser.
- jordanb 2y ago
  Yes. The purpose of Mozilla Org, from the perspective of the people paying for it (Google), was to kill Firefox. Mitchell Baker got rewarded because she did her job.
  - gary_0 2y ago
    It's hard not to imagine Google giving a little wink as they hand over that check.
mardifoufs 2y ago
I don't think he would've done things differently really. He was also part of the same old guard and wasn't exactly aiming for some radical changes inside Mozilla. Imo one of the only things that could've made Firefox more relevant would've been to focus on an electron alternative, especially early on in 2013-14 as it would've been an entirely new "product segment", which could've made Firefox the standard engine for a lot of apps. But there's no indication that anyone high up at Firefox wanted to do something like that. It's a non-profit and non profits are rather conservative, for better or for worse.
- Moomoomoo309 2y ago
  You mean positron? https://github.com/mozilla/positron https://github.com/mozilla/positron They did try to build that, and gave up.
  - kasabali 2y ago
    They had XULRunner long before that, then of course they ditched it to pursue whatever crap they were pursuing that year. What a great vision.
  - mardifoufs 2y ago
    Yeah I heard about it, but I don't know why they gave up. There's a lot of stuff that could be done to improve on electron (especially back then), and Mozilla was in a nice position where they controlled their web engine (as opposed to electron), so they could've made a very solid product... anyways that's not happening now... Edit: okay from what I understand in the blog, one of the reasons for abandoning it was that it was hard to keep up with the electron API changes and keep it compatible. That just goes to show that they were completely outplayed early on, otherwise they wouldn't have had to play catch up by merely being an electron shell around Spider monkey... >But Tofino is dead (long live the Browser Futures Group!), and Electron compatibility isn’t essential for a viable Gecko runtime. It’s also hard, since Electron has a large API surface area, is a moving target, requires Node.js integration (itself a moving target), and is designed for Chromium’s process architecture, which is substantially different from Firefox’s.
- 2y ago